You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball…Of course, baseball fans know that this line from Bull Durham is far from true, part of the humor of the movie and a huge part of the fun of the game. This blog is a space to talk about baseball, being a baseball fan, all of those things that make the game fun and the Angels, because they make baseball fun for me.

Sports Radio GaGa

The Sports Lodge, our Orange and Los Angeles County morning sports radio show (broadcast from KLAA out of Angels stadium, for full disclosure) turned the daily One on One segment over to the listeners today. This is a semiweekly occurrence, as host Roger Lodge sees fit, where a usually divisive question is posed and listeners ad invited to call the show and weigh in. Today’s question was prompted by Arte Moreno’s comments to the Los Angeles Times that if he increased the Angles offers for high end free agents to the levels other teams have paid, it would necessitate raising ticket prices and he is unwilling to do that. So, Lodge’s question to the listeners: Would you rather raise ticket prices, land a big name free agent like an Adrian Beltre and have a real shot at being championship team? Or, keep ticket prices the same as they are right now and watch the same below .500 result you watched last year?

I wish I was able to hear the listeners responses but my car has the wimpiest antenna known to man and, per its usual, it refused to pick up am radio from the point in my commute when Lodge finished his funny Devil’s advocate spiel until moments before I pulled into the parking lot at work. Gee, thanks car. Had I a chance to call in I would have teased Lodge about the question itself (which was probably part of why he phrased it that way, truth be told) which I think was based on three pieces of false logic:

1) The 2010 Angels were a bad, sub .500 team that cannot improve without a big name free agency signing. Last year was bad, really bad. But all that bad was the result of bad performances, not a bad team (an important nuance to my way of thinking) and more than a little bad luck on top of it. Bad performances from otherwise good players, even season long bad performances, can improve. With bad players, this would be far less likely. Can this season’s bad performances improve without outside help? Yes! If the entire roster had just batted at their normal batting averages this season, for one thing, we would have won a lot of the games we lost this year. Will performances improve without outside help? God I hope so. There are no guarantees, but it doesn’t seem too farfetched to expect most of the players to return to playing to their normal capability, which would be a big improvement. And we get Kendry back, which is another improvement in and of itself and mitigates the bad luck factor.

2) Small changes addressing specific problems will not do anything to improve that situation. I think we need a few more changes to address additional weak spots on the team, of course, but one of our bigger problems last year was the Arson Squad Bullpen part deux. Signing Downs and Takahashi will definitely improve that situation and, while I don’t think this is the entire fix by a long shot, it’s an important improvement all the same.

3) A single big name free agency signing can turn a bad sub .500 team into a championship team. I had the most issues with this question premise. I do not believe that one player can elevate a truly poor team into a great team. Does anyone really think that with the Jayson Werth signing the Nationals are going to take the NL East next year? No, but for a team like the Red Sox who were so close, but not close enough last year, signing Carl Crawford might make enough of a difference to justify the expense.

I see the Angles, playing at the level the current roster is capable of playing at, as being a lot closer to the Red Sox example than to the Nationals example and, in that sense, I think a big name free agency signing could definitely help us rise back to the level of championship team. But I take issue with the idea that without such a signing, nothing else matters and we’re back to a below .500 performance in 2011.

So . What are your thoughts on the possibilities of a single big name free agent turning a bad team around? Or on my musings on bad team vs. bad performances as it relates to the Angels or just in general?

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And on the Adrian Beltre front? Well, it’s the Angels rumor mill hokey pokey – We put the right bid in, we pulled it right back out, wait we put a new bid in, no we threw the whole thing out. The rumor mill hokey pokey sure turns stuff all around. Darned if anyone knows who really knows what it’s all about. ;)

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4 Comments

I agree that a single free agent can’t turn a bad team around. Not at all. But, as you say, if a contending team has a “need,” as Brian Cashman always calls it, a free agent can certainly fill it. It’s really about not spending money for the sake of it but rather to acquire a player who plugs a hole.

I think the rest of the AL West finally caught up to the Angels and now they will turn it up a notch in 2011. It would help if they added Beltre too. However, even if they don’t sign him I think your team has enough to win your division.

Ron – Yeah the rest of the division has definitely caught up and that will actually be a lot of fun as soon as the Angels are competitive again. I agree they could be this year without Beltre but I sure wouldn’t turn him down either – Thanks for stopping by and for your comment!
-Kristenhttp://blithescribe.mlblogs.com/

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